During a brief discussion of its third generation of electric vehicles, one slide (pictured above) seems to reveal that the company plans on using that future platform for a crossover as well as a sedan. The different body types went unmentioned by CEO Elon Musk, but there it was on wall behind him for all the world to see.

Musk did say, however, that the company expects Gen III production to be an order of magnitude greater than that of the Model S sedan and its platform-sharing sister, the Model X SUV. As well as being smaller, we expect the upcoming cars to be about 40 percent less expensive, which should greatly help drive sales.

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So the Model S and Model X will be replaced by the Model S2 and Model X2. And that makes perfect sense. You can't spend tons of money creating new models all the time. They need to incrementally refine the existing ones.

Not replaced, just a smaller sized segment. The Model S is compared to the BMW 5 series and the new BlueStar/Mass Market/Gen III car will comparable to a BMW 3 series. I expect it to be priced in the upper 30's and if the tax rebate is still around then that will move its price into the low $30K market.

@Spec: I am not sure why you are so pessimistic. Batteries are dropping in cost nicely, and the basic electric car is cheaper to make otherwise than an ICE, once the production equipment is amortised and sufficient volume is reached.

Elon said that the market on batteries will be under $200 per kWh by 2015. My impression was that he was almost there now. If so, then a 35 kWh pack for Tesla would run around $6000 and then I could see a $40K price tag ($32,500 after rebate) for a car that gets realistically 120 miles (150 at constant 55 mph) on a charge.

@Spec Elon has said the goal was the $30k range base price for the third gen model. He has met promises of the $50-60k range base price for the Model S, so I think he has some credibility. Tesla doesn't have magic that Nissan doesn't know about, but Tesla is paying about half $/kWh for cells than Nissan because of the decision to go for commodity cells. That means for a Leaf sized pack, it's a $5k vs $10k difference (even bigger difference for larger packs). If we push the price to $35k, Tesla will have about $25-30k to work with for the rest of the car, which I think is do-able.

As I wrote below, I think people expecting a vehicle in the 30's are going to be disappointed. I'm sure they would love to bring such a car to market but there has not been enough innovation and mass market volume to bring the prices down that low. It is not like Tesla has any magic that Nissan does not know about.

So much optimism. But I just don't see evidence to warrant it. Nissan raised the price of the Leaf $3K . . . hopefully they'll cut it. Ford released an EV for $40K. The Volt held the price steady at $39K with a small battery improvement, so that is good news. They might be able to do it if EVs catch on thus driving down prices . . . but right now that doesn't look good with lowered gas prices and meager EV sales. I think EVs are coming but just not as fast as many would like.

@Spec Nissan raised Leaf prices because of the exchange rate (and the fact the US plant isn't online yet so they want to allocate as much Leafs outside of the US as possible). The Ford costs $40k because Ford contracted it out to Magna. The Volt costs $39k, but it also has the ICE and a complex transmission system (plus $1 billion+ worth of R&D they have to recoup) that the Gen III Tesla won't have. And keep in mind we are not talking about a car that will be out this year, but a couple of years later (then the Tesla may have reached under the $200/kWh point Elon talked about).

I just want something really simple, but well build, and stylish. I think Tesla can totally do that. I don't need giant screens and all sorts of fancy systems doing this or that. I just want an electric car that was build on an electric platform, with basic luxuries like a key fob and electric windows. Heck I don't even NEED the windows to be electric. Oh, also, reductive charging. No way I'd buy an electric vehicle without it. The industry seriously needs to bite the bullet and pay the licensing fees on this one. Infrastructure would not be an issue if it was standard.

Reductive charging is using the coil windings of the motor as part for the charging system. It is patented by AC Propulsion so anyone using it has to pay licensing fees to them. This was used in the earlier Roadsters, but Tesla ditched it in the later versions for a separate charger. In the Model S, the charger is completely modular, so it also doesn't use reductive charging. http://www.acpropulsion.com/products-reductive.html

Anonymous

2 Years Ago

Get rid of the fancy screen, scale down to 205/55-16, forget leather and all the excuses to put heating/conditioning on the seats, with cloth seats you don't need that, put a good yellow turn signals for "world car", remove all that thief attracting connections to the 3-4-5-whatever G to reduce everything money eating stuff. Make the 600km range (Toronto to Montreal + to find parking/charging) at 130km/hr and I am ready with my deposit.

Anonymous

2 Years Ago

The fancy screen is probably cheaper. They do it in house, already have the code written for the S, and those buttons cost a lot of money to hire out all that plastic and electronics to fit in a shape.

i like to see alot from tesla not just one car i would like too see them make a minivan a SUV another sports car a wagen and a coupe tht is also a convertible. i would like tesla to make this whole line up full of cars

Elon seems to make good decisions, but I'm not convinced by mass market. If he can sell 40,000 luxury units per year. Develop 1 smaller and 1 larger platform keep it premium and sell 100,000 cars per year. You have a massive niche! Make electric cars desirable is the first thing you need to do, then make them mass market! But the profit is in the premium. Just sell components and technology to mass market!

Anonymous

1 Year Ago

Tesla could and perhaps should make the ultimate autocaravan, or just a chassis in which other manufacters could build their own autocaravans: there is allready inplace a very good network of electrical plugs to charge (in almost every camping in the world), and doing this would mean that you could travel essentially free for a day and charge in the camping site at night. I'm suprised this is not a top priority for Tesla...

Anonymous

I don't think the cars will be cheap. ABG my be expecting the upcoming cars to be "40% less" than a model S but I don't think that is realistic. Tesla is a luxury brand that prides itself on high tech solutions. A smaller car is not that much cheaper to build, the battery may be cheaper but everything else wont be. Tesla also buys in such small quantities they are not going to get the pricing a company the size of Renault/Nissan does.

Yeah, I agree with this. People looking for a mid-$30's follow on are being over-optimistic. I think they'll produce a lower priced car but it will not be huge price drop . . . maybe down in the $40's. There has not been enough of a mass market created to push battery & EV component prices down.